376 MR. Œ. BENTHAM ON COMPOSITX. 
duced to a single floret. The receptacle is without pales, except in 
three or four genera where deciduous pale: subtend the florets in 
some or all of the species. The corollas are tubular and regular, 
the limb variously shaped, with five or rarely four short teeth, 
very rarely (in Liatris and its allies) with the longer lobes of 
Vernoniaces; they vary in colour from pink or purplish to white 
or pale yellowish, never truly yellow. The anthers in one sub- 
iribe are truncate at the top without the normal appendages 
which are present in the other subtribes, as in the generality of 
Composite; they are uniformly obtuse at the base, without pro- 
minent pointed auricles or tails. The style-branches are elon- 
gated, terete or somewhat flattened, obtuse or club-shaped towards 
the end, minutely papillose, but not hairy, with the stigmatic 
serles rather obscure on the inner surface towards their base. 
The achenes in the first two subtribes are four- or five-angled, or 
rarely flat; in the third subtribe more terete and ten-ribbed: the 
pappus usually of fine but rigid sete in one or two rows, in a few 
small genera plumose or nearly so, in some others reduced to a 
small definite number, or intermixed with short scales or palez, or 
the whole pappus reduced to these small pale» or entirely 
deficient. 
3. Asteroidee. 
We limit the Asteroides to the genera with tailless anthers 
and with appendages to the style-branches. The subtribes or di- 
visions Spheranthex, Tarchonanthez, Plucheinez, Inuleze, and 
Buphthalmex of De Candolle form part of our great tribe of 
Inuloidee; and the Ecliptez pass into the Helianthoidex, most of 
the genera enumerated by De Candolle under the former name 
having nearly related or identical genera among the latter. The 
Asteroidez thus limited are for the most part readily distin- 
guished, by the above characters of the style and anthers, from 
all other tribes; but there are a few Inuloide* and Senecionidese 
where the involucre and other secondary characters must be 
called in aid. 
Asteroidee are mostly herbaceous perennials, or sometimes 
annuals ; but a few southern or insular genera are shrubby, rarely 
growing into small trees. The leaves are, with very few excep- 
tions, alternate, entire or toothed or occasionally divided, but much 
less frequently so than in Anthemidez. The involucral bracts 
are usually imbricate in several rows, in a few genera all nearly 
equal in about two rows. The capitula are usually heterogamous, 
